Visitation
by Chaosisalightsleeper
Summary: Severus Snape discovers there is more than one Dark Lord. AU.


**Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.**

**Warcraft belongs to Blizzard.**

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Visitation

In the initial moments, following the unexpected materialization, Severus Snape stood quite cautiously motionless, wand poised with a plain intention; he eyed the looming, black-armored figure before him.

It had arrived in a flashing, chaotic storm of energy, creating a momentary breach in the temporal fabric. Identity, origin, objective—all were presently a mystery. Was it dangerous? _Unquestionably_.

As if composed of dark magic, the shadowy form seemed to radiate a palpable ferocity—_pure_ _rage—_and of a scope previously unknown to the uneasy wizard. This destructive force, Severus sensed, was held in check by an indomitable will, purposefully shaped by an intellect too glacial to be human. One that was now fully focused upon him.

_ Dark Lord… _he thought with a sense of grim foreboding.

There was a faint hiss of malevolent laughter from his visitor, and Severus received the distinct and unpleasant impression that his thoughts had just been handily plundered. He turned away, for a quick, discreet summoning of protection.

"Your enchantments cannot shield you, wizard…" he was informed. "Not against me."

Severus blinked, "What brought you here, spirit?" he asked warily.

"I am no _spirit_…" was the reply; and despite the aura of wrath that cloaked his visitor, there was no anger in the words. Rather, Severus detected an unexpected element of sardonic humor in the hollow, slightly echoing voice. The towering figure swept gracefully around the chamber; coldly lambent eyes—spectral within the dark recesses of the creature's thorny, crown-like helm—were fixed upon him with harrowing intensity.

"What I seek," the visitor continued, "is a certain, rare potential..."

_"__Potential?" _Severus murmured with some trepidation, pondering the glowing long sword his visitor held unsheathed, as if for imminent conflict, and clasped in what was recognizably a seasoned warrior's limber, powerful grip. A frightening weapon, it smoked with the same ghostly fire that lighted the disconcerting eyes of its wielder. Severus sensed a troubling… _sentience_ about the sword. Yes, There was more here than steel, he realized. Far more.

"Are you a… practitioner of dark arts?" Severus ventured.

Again, the luminous eyes moved to consider him; that smoldering gaze was deeply unnerving to the powerful wizard, and he had seen a great many disturbing sights in his time. Resonant, wintry laughter was the indecipherable answer to his question.

"Did I… somehow _summon_ you?" Severus inquired further, debating upon his chances of surviving this encounter. That too was an unknown, as he could not imagine what force had crossed their separate paths—or _why_.

"No one commands _me_," he was informed; and there was the sudden, potent presence of intolerance in the words. "Suffice it to say that you have attracted my attention."

"I see…" Severus lied, his nimble mind turning and analyzing this dangerous situation. By what mechanism had this event occurred? Most important, presently, how was he to _end_ it satisfactorily? His thoughts moved to dwell upon the several experiments currently brewing in his cellar, the carefully molded outcome of many hours of tedious, exacting preparation. Had he somehow inadvertently engaged this unknown power—or even _provoked _it into being? If summarily destroying all his laborious work was required to rid him of this frightening apparition and prevent it ever happening again, then so be it. Whatever passageway he had created—or _unlocked—_it would, by necessity, need to be closed and enchanted away.

_And if I am not responsible... _the thought drifted, aberrant, through his mind. _What then?_

"How may I be of service to you?" Severus asked quietly, diligently hoping he could not.

There was a restless sigh from his forbidding caller and the wizard found himself being scrutinized yet again.

The figure drew nearer, a living shadow that brought with him horrific chill, the stench of death, and of ancient ice. Severus saw icicles—sharp, silvery daggers—had formed amid a lace of frost upon the black armor the visitor wore. And when the massive, plated shoulders lifted in a slight shrug, Severus was quite certain he heard the delicate tinkling of ice crystals in the long, white hair that swept across the specter's back.

"Perhaps _I _can help _you_…" was the reply, "Let us say, I have a proposal."

_"Proposal?" _

"Yes." The visitor made another pass around the room, his plated boots ringing on the stone floor, and then turning to face him once more, he said, "You do not know what power _is_, Severus Snape… but I can show you."

"Who are you?" Severus whispered. "Ye gods, _w__hat_ are you?"

"All in good time, wizard," was the dismissive reply, "but you may be certain, the reward for your service is _substantial_." He raised a hand, and Severus watched, startled, as a glowing, fuming vortex began to form. It spiraled dizzyingly, writhing with tendrils of black and indigo. There was immense power in this force, whatever it was, and equally, intense cold. It began to shape into a passageway. Severus stepped back, feeling the magnetism of its unfolding energies. He did not wish to see the place this doorway opened upon; but he could hear it now, distantly—the shriek of killing winds, the elemental voice of a wasteland of ice. Past that threshold lived a world of hungry darkness.

"What say you, Severus Snape?"

"And if… if my answer is… no?"

"If you were content with your lot, I would not be here. _Would I?" _There was the curve of a cold white smile in the shadows of the helm, "Deny me to your despair." This was not a threat, as such, Severus realized; but it _was_ a promise.

_ "I invoked you…" _Severus whispered, "Somehow my _needs_… I…" he pressed his lips together.

"I offer you what you most desire," the voice tempted. "_Everything_ you desire." Severus shook his head. He dared not believe; he had heard those words before. "I am the Lord of the Dead, wizard," the dark knight said, pointing to the howling mouth of the passage and its writhing threshold, "Death is my kingdom; and what abides there is _mine _to judge." He paused, tilting his head, "Consider well what that might mean to _you_." He raised and extended a gauntleted hand. There was great power here, just within his grasp, Severus knew. It whispered to him in invitation—both seductive and encompassing—an offer of immortality, of purpose… the certainty of _reclamation_…

_Yet at what price? _

What would this unearthly overlord demand as recompense—_if not his very soul?_

"I have had enough of death," Severus murmured, "_and_ darkness."

"So be it then," the tall specter said, "I leave you with the price of your decision..." He stepped into the seething maelstrom he had raised to serve him, and was gone as suddenly as he had appeared. The air shimmered; it seemed _changed—_writhing with the residue of a flexing, unknowable power—one that had easily torn its way into his world.

As Severus watched, shivering in the aftermath of this awareness, too astounded for clarity of thought, reality seemed to reassert itself, and all was as it had been before. The potions master could only wonder if he had imagined the entire event. Uneasily, he considered his work; only the smallest misapplication might result in psychotic fugue. The miasma of the grave, the ominous sense of deep and terrible darkness, even the echoing voice, and the chill subtlety of what it had offered for his compliance... all could be manifestations of delirium.

That was all well and good in explanation, he mused, glancing around the room with a quivering sigh, until his gaze paused, and came to rest upon the icy remnants of footprints that were, even as he watched, slowly evaporating in a spiraling blue haze.

Severus stared, transfixed, as this vapor rippled, forming identifiable shapes within its slowly shifting, translucent folds; and filled with an unnameable dread, he stepped closer still, as if drawn to this action through no decision of his own.

There were… _faces… voices…_ in the gelid, drifting mist—billowing, distorted, _screaming_, as the glittering veil thinned upon unfelt currents in the strangely charged air. And then, for an ephemeral moment, amongst that tormented throng, one voice lifted above the din... familiar, _beloved_, calling his name…

_"Lily…" _he gasped, desperate, reaching out, even as the soft timbre of his loss dissolved into nothingness and was gone. _"No… wait, please wait…" _he groaned in the devastating grip of perfect realization.

_ Deny me to your despair… _had been the visitor's promise.

Distantly, at the very edge of awareness, Severus could hear the growling cadence of savage laughter, "Did you think to defy _me?"_ the voice murmured inside his mind. "Be assured of my return, wizard... _and_ of your submission to my will..."

Stricken, and finding his legs could no longer support his weight, Severus sank slowly to his knees. _Potential_... The word rang as a death knell through his thoughts, and he could only wonder what hunger, what personal darkness of his had brought this visitation upon him. What _was_ he to be recognized and then judged _worthy_ by such a fiend as the one whose presence he had just endured? He bent his head, as desolated as he had ever been in his life.

_Lily._

_His secret desire was known. __H__e was vulnerable to whatever this pitiless Dark Lord might level against him... _

Yet, even knowing this, and terrified by it, there remained that tenacious, damning _hope_... It had never left him, never given him the finality, the peace of closure; and now, Severus Snape knew, it would surely doom him.


End file.
